“Are they?” Gordon raised his eyebrows as he poured his own wine. “That, then, is unfortunate in terms of timing.” With a smile he lifted up his glass and made a toast. “To absent friends. May we be reunited soon.”
I drank, and would have eased into the conversation but he cut straight to the heart of it with, “Tell me about this inquiry of yours.”
While we ate, I summarized, and Gordon nodded.
Then he studied me in turn. “I understood from Henry that you had an interest in one talk I had with Lily Aitcheson.”
“Aye.”
“That you wish to know what we discussed.”
“Aye.”
With another nod, he pushed his plate aside. “In life, you understand, we always say things that we later would take back—a careless insult, or a sharp word thrown in anger. We are none of us immune.” He took his glass in hand and told me, “But in all my life, there are no words I wish to take back more than those I spoke to Lily on that morning.” When his eyes met mine, they held a deep regret. “They caused more harm than I will ever know.”
Chapter 29
Tuesday, 30 November, 1697
Maggie looked across the water of the firth toward the farther shore, her forehead furrowing the way it always did when she felt Lily’s explanations made no sense. “But it looks nothing like a road.”
The day was sunny but the wind was brisk, and Maggie leaned back into Lily, seeking shelter. Now that Maggie had turned eight, the top of her fair head exactly reached the height of Lily’s heart.
The symbolism of that was not lost on Lily. With her arms wrapped closely round the little girl, she said, “Ye asked me where the Road of Leith was, and I’ve shown ye. It is no more than a stretch of water near the shore where ships may safely lie at anchor.”
From behind them, Captain Gordon said approvingly, “That is an excellent description.”
Maggie wriggled free of Lily’s arms and danced around to greet the captain, holding up her doll to show the new blue cloak that Barbara had made for her.
“Very bonny,” Captain Gordon said, “and perfect for Saint Andrew’s Day.” He looked around them at the crowds of people who were gathering and strolling past, awaiting the festivities. “Is Mrs. Browne not with you?”
Lily shook her head. “She said since red hair brings bad luck to ships, and a woman brings more, then a redheaded woman is bound to be very unwelcome today.”
Maggie told him, “They are giving a ship a new name.”
“Aye, so I did hear.”
“It’s over there,” said Maggie, pointing out the ship anchored across the firth at Burntisland. “Ye see? The second one, with all the blue and gold. It’s twice the size of yours.”
“A little more than twice, I think. But ships are built for different things,” the captain said. “My ship, like many others in the harbor here, is owned by merchants who employ me as its skipper. Now and then I may have sailed as far as Spain or Italy, but generally we sail no farther than to Holland or to France and home again, and she needs only to be large enough to hold her cargo and my men. ’Tis better she be slight and swift than lumbering and large, in case we’re forced to run from privateers. And sixteen guns are all I need to make someone think twice about pursuing us.” He nodded at another larger ship that was familiar to them all. “Now, something like the Royal William is completely different. She belongs to our Scots navy and the crown, and has a duty to patrol our coast and give an escort to the smaller merchant ships, like mine, when we are traveling in convoy. That’s why she’s a larger ship with thirty-two guns, and can carry troops of soldiers if she’s called upon to keep us safe.”
Maggie pointed out that, if he were the captain of the Royal William, he could wear a fine blue coat. “Ye would be very handsome.”
“Thank you. But then I’d be bound to sail wherever the king told me to, and nowhere else. So while I do agree it would be fine to have a ship so grand, I’ll steer the course I have awhile longer, if it’s all the same to you, and bide my time till we’ve a Stewart on the throne again.”
Lily said, “You may be waiting a long time, considering the terms of peace.” The ink was barely dry upon the treaties lately signed to end the war with France, and one of the conditions that had been agreed to was that the French king should recognize King William as the rightful British monarch, and deny King James. This had come as a great blow to the Jacobites, and must have been an insult to King James as well, considering the French king was his cousin.